New Inscription May Illuminate Biblical Events

Tel Dan surveyor Gila Cook first spotted the “House of David” inscription in the glancing rays of the afternoon sun. She called over excavation director Avraham Biran, who, when he saw it, exclaimed, “Oh, my God, we have an inscription!” The photos show the fragmentary stela as it was found (above) and shortly after removal (below).

Broken in antiquity and reused as building material, the stela lay in a wall beneath the eighth-century B.C.E. destruction debris from Tiglath-pileser III’s conquest. The inscription’s 13 partially preserved lines in the Early Aramaic language, written in paleo-Hebrew script of the ninth century B.C.E., uses dots to separate the words (drawing, below). Based on associated pottery fragments and evidence from the inscription itself, Professor Biran suggests the stela was erected in the first half of the ninth century B.C.E. Biran and his colleagues continue to search for additional fragments of the stela.